Jackie: One of the things I found really interesting is that Carson used her first initial while publishing articles in The Sun, what did you think of this?
Amanda: Being that science was a very male thing, I think it was very smart of her. She definitely wanted to be taken seriously. As her name grew in familiarity it helped her with the popularity of her book, even if it was more controversial because she was a woman.
Diana: Initially in her first books it helped her. In Silent Spring it was definitely better that she was a women though because it was more provocative.
Jackie: Do you feel that the fact that Carson was a woman made her stance any less valued? Short term/long term?
Amanda: Short term: less seriously. Now, it doesn’t matter because of the modern view and women are valued in science just as equally as men.
Jackie: Do you feel that it was smart of Carson to include such a drastic change in the made up town that she talks about? Does this allow for harsher criticism of her piece?
Diana: It did allow for harsher criticism but it needed to be written that way. It set the scene that everyone thinks were living in a perfect little world meanwhile we really have no idea what is going on.
Amanda: I disagree slightly only because she is a scientist. If she was trying to write from the scientific point of view she was not successful. So by writing it like this it took away from scientific fact because she wasn’t basing it on everything real. It gave the scientific community something to criticize.
Diana: Yes but a town like this might exist if it weren’t for her not to mention that it fit into the style of her writing. She used really poetic imagery and language.
Jackie: Carson makes a good point about how the insecticides used by farmers causes overproduction and wastes billions of tax dollars. Should the US ban the use of all pesticides for farmers? Is that what Carson is saying?
Amanda: Yes I thin she wants the ban of pesticides completely although in my opinion she is shooting for an unrealistic goal. In today’s day of age it wouldn’t be applicable
Diana: She probably wanted to eliminate it all but to some extent she understood that was unrealistic and just aimed for the increasing knowledge of the public.
Amanda: It is possible she just wanted to inform the public.
Jackie: 500 new chemicals are produced each year to help continue the “war on nature”. Why does Carson suggest we call insecticides, biocides? Is this an exaggeration?
Amanda: She is trying to connect to the cold war era. This is not necessarily an exaggeration but she is trying to connect to her audience and the time period.
Diana: She has a good point. She related that it alters the genetics of the plants that are eaten by the animals that are eaten by us (humans) and eventually it affects our DNA.
Jackie: Do you agree with Carson that insects were meant to essentially fix the problems of overcrowding and overpopulation in poor areas?
Amanda: Yea, I don’t agree with that. She is too much into the nature part. You need to choose between progress and nature. Nature, to some extent, is the price we have to pay for progress. We chose to be progressive.
Jackie: On page five Carson questions “… Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances whoa re not quite enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?” This left me compelled to take action. What do you think the purpose of this is?
Diana: She is more concerned with the general public. What the public demands affects what scientists will do. If they demand organic pestiside free food that’s what they will get.
Amanda: Definitely, a call to the public. Designed to compel the consumer to take action because they do essentially have the power.
Jackie: Carson takes a strong yet controversial stand when she talks about our Forefathers. What did you think of this? Do you agree with her statement?
Diana: She is putting words in their mouths. They would agree with the agriculture point of view. They wanted the best for the country. They would side with progression. It kind of makes her sounds crazy.
Amanda: I think that was another attempt to appeal to the public because our country is so constitution based. Then again, it failed because it does make her sounds crazy that she’d suggest our forefathers would side with her.
Jackie: Do you think Carson’s battle to save the environment is still present in today society? How do you know?
Amanda: It is still present. There are people who are still very concerned… global warming is always in the news. The difference is that now science can back things up which makes it more real of a concern to the general public.
Diana: Everyone wants to save the world now. The EPA is regulating smoke stacks. Its moving away from pesticide control but it has a broader focus area.
Jackie: Do you think Carson’s suggestion to eliminate single crop farming would work? I feel that farmers would be outraged if they were limited to the number of plants they were allowed to plant per acreage.
Amanda: Were too big of a country. Were too reliant on this type of production. Its not practical. People come before the insects. Not everyone can afford to buy organic food.
Diana: We will not be able to fully eliminate this problem because even with what we have now people are still going hungry.
Amanda: Unless the hunger issue is fixed this problem can never truly be resolved.
Jackie: I agree with you guys in a lot of ways. I felt disappointed while reading her piece because I felt she took a stance that was almost too radical.
Amanda: Definitely, you can’t say insects should be allowed kill people without causing a debate or dispute of some sort.
Catherine: What was your initial response to the introduction by Linda Lear?
ReplyDeleteAshley: It reminded me a lot of the book The Jungle, which looks at the meat packing industry in a similar way that this book looks at chemicals. It seems like Silent Spring is that text but for our generation. The Jungle was written a while ago, so the people who are now in their sixties or seventies would know more about that book than we do. They both are about the negative effects from something humans are causing.
Alex: I think what struck me about the introduction was the idea of social conformity that it talks about. It seems like people then just used to accept the facts that companies and scientists were putting out about the effects of the chemicals on the earth and on people. It’s also odd how she died so quickly after her novel was published.
Catherine: I agree that it’s both odd and sad how Carson passed away so soon after the publishing of her book. I was intrigued by the fact that she just knew that this text would become hugely popular and read by many, and then I was sad to learn that she could never realize this fact due to her immediate death. What did you guys think of the feminist tone Lear has while writing this introduction?
Alex: I think that she wanted to focus on the fact that Carson’s work as a female scientist was provocative. That was interesting to me, especially since it wasn’t the social norm.
Catherine: Especially since research on this topic alone was super controversial, she was a female trying to find the evidence which made it even more dramatic.
Ashley: I think the feminist tone helped show that Carson’s work was groundbreaking. I can’t believe how much effort companies went through to try to diminish Carson’s work, though.
Catherine: It says that they spent over a quarter of a million dollars alone trying to discredit Carson’s research. It sure seems like Carson was getting somewhere with her work if they went through that much effort to attempt to shut it down. How did you guys feel about the first and second chapters?
Ashley: I like how Carson employed imagery, and then included the other facts and information for the reader. It made the words more dramatic but also informative.
Alex: I think the background is interesting. It
reminded me of the fact that for us high fructose corn syrup is just part of who we are, socially and physically. It’s in our hair, our skin, everything.
Ashley: I agree, and also like the way chemicals weren’t tested for long term effects back then, we have so many drugs on the market today that are barely tested for the amount of time they should be before they are sold.
Alex: It’s worse because the reason we need the drugs and chemicals are because of the irregular farming and things that we do to the earth, that require new types of chemicals to fix the problems.
Catherine: Basically we are doing it to ourselves.
Hannah: "Human beings were not in control of nature but simply one of its parts: the survival of one part depended upon the health of all" (Carson). Do you believe that human beings and creatures as seemingly tiny as insects are really dependent on each other? Also, Carson blames the root of environmental problems on the "postwar culture of science". Do you think science is at fault?
ReplyDeleteCourtney: I don't think Carson is necessarily saying that science and progression is a bad thing. I think she is saying it is beneficial, but that proper education is necessary about environmental issues so that humans can think about the long term effects of actions.
Jessie: I agree, I think she is more condemning people blindly doing things like killing off the bugs without considering the fact that we are all part of one ecosystem together. Moderation to everything, including scientific research/pesticide invention, is key.
Courtney: But I do think that technically, without us humans, the ecosystem can't go on. Comparing the significance of humans to ants may be a bit dramatic.
Jessie: Carson isn't worried that killing off bugs is going to kill humans, but rather that the pesticides and chemicals that are designed to kill these bugs will make it so that the surviving bugs will come back even stronger. This will make humans invent pesticides even more harmful to the environment (in order to combat stronger insects).
Hannah: So basically, it's like the food chain, where if one element is "off" then the whole balance of the system can be destroyed.
Jessie: Exactly. She is stressing the importance of having balance and an equilibrium of all the earth's beings. She's really enforcing the importance of looking at long term and short term effects of the damage we do to the environment and other animals on the planet.
Courtney: I think she is definately overexaggerating the importance of these insects and scientific research, but with good reason, because they are important issues and her almost dramatic way of writing catches reader's attention. She is very ambitious, and I'm not sure if the average person can bring themselves to care about the topic as much as she does.
Hannah: How do you think religion ties into this article? Because I know the past readings we've done have been immediately God-related, but what do you think this article is trying to say about religion/spirituality?
Courtney: At first I was shocked when I started reading because it was completely non religious (in comparison to our other readings).
Jessie: I think there are a lot of spiritual, not religious aspects to Carson's article. She talks a lot about nature, perfection of Mother Nature's environmental beauties, happiness, things like that.
Courtney: I agree, I think she is definately more spiritual than "religious". She's still very scientific, practical, and reasonble, but also has a very nurturing, concerned personality towards the environment.
Hannah: Personally, I thought that she was making strong religious implications about the work of overachieving man and science, especially when she is talking negatively about sciencitific experimentation and DNA alternations. She seems to believe meddling with nature, the way a God might have created it, is sacrilegious and terribly inhumane. In that way I definately saw strong religious elements to the reading.
Courtney: I agree, but I also think that competitive drive and determination to do better is part of human nature so it's not realistic to discourage exploration of chemicals, DNA alterations, and scientific research.
Jessie: It is definately important to be spiritual and "smell the roses"/appreciate nature. But Carson needs to realize that in a modern society we need to stay relatively fast paced since there is an arm's race amongst countries to be the most innovative and scientifically advanced. Being the world's leading nation increases that pressure too.
Sarah: What characteristics of her being a female could have contributed to Carson’s success and her discoveries… Or is her being a female completely exclusive of her success?
ReplyDeleteGreg: I don’t think that because she is a woman that it made her successful, I think that her success was separate from her gender, but I think that because she was the first woman that came out in this field, I think it helped her because it differentiated her from men, but her discoveries were completely separate from her gender
Dylan: I think she recognized that the field of science was really male dominated, so she felt like she had nothing to lose so she could present any idea she wanted even though it may not be taken seriously
Sarah: What about the fact that she wrote to the public and not to a narrow scientific field? Did the fact that she was oppressed as a women make her more relatable to the public, and could she empathize more easily?
Dylan: Maybe in writing the way she did made it easier to appeal to the broader public, but I don’t know if that is related to her being female
She had no PHD or institutional affiliation—do you think that women have to work harder for credentials and success to be treated equally to men
Greg:I think we're in a society where woman almost need to… especially in a business or science setting that women need to prove themselves more than men, and that most people might feel more comfortable with a male CEO or a male person in power. It is the same thing with the president, there has never been a female president and I don’t know if America is ready for a female president, I feel like people are more comfortable if they know a male is in power
Dylan: When she writes her initials to get make people think a male wrote her works, I guess its her acknowledging that the field is male dominate. It mentioned that she became a junior biologist and studied with someone to gain more credibility, and she knows she is downplayed because she is a woman
Greg: J.K. Rowling’s publisher told her to use her initials so that more boys would read the book, and to avoid the book being called “a chick book”
Sarah: Do you think that we should slow down innovation or is innovation integral t our society? What’s worse: protecting ourselves with weapons and crating factories or is preserving our ecological system? Or could we even recognize that as a nation—is it in our mentality to sacrifice our weapons for our bodies?
Dylan:In terms of pollution and the development of factories, I guess that there are other ways to do it that are less polluting. They do it because its cheaper and they just want to make money and they would sacrifice e the environment for that
Greg: I think its impossible to stop the progression of innovation in our society its exponentially growing. The moment the iphone comes out they’re halfway done with the iphone five. There’s always going to be a new technology or a new discovery that’s going to make everything before completely obsolete. That’s going to be a huge lead to a downward society for any society.
Sarah: As a collective group for us as a nation and a global society, its hard for us to see the long-term effects of what we’re doing. And then coupled with the fact that we enter into wars and stuff that isn’t necessarily beneficial, do you think that humans are inherently self-destructive?
Greg:I don’t think we try to be. There’s always something else in mind… I don’t think initially think they are helping themselves. But everything we do is destructive, but its not recognizable right away.
Dylan: I think we’ve gotten to a point where all we know what to do is to keep innovating and creating things, but the way we do it is harmful. So I don’t think we are inherently destructive but I think all we know is disruptive. There are other ways to not be self-destructive. But when we have all these incentives such as money and greed its hard to stop the destruction
Nick: Do you think that Carson should have used the name "R.L. Carson" in the beginning of her writing career, or should she haves used the name "Rachel"?
ReplyDeleteAndrew: I think what she did was best by starting with her initials. Because of her time, it's possible that her ideas, even though they were true, may have been instantly discredited simply because a woman said them.
Nick: How would Carson's book be received if she was a man?
Andrew: I feel that the public would have accepted it even more easily than they did. I'm sure that there were some people in the public who rejected her theories because of her gender; these people would probably believe what the author had to say in this case. Regardless of who the author was, however, the chemical agencies would have still disputed the claims, in order to try and save face.
Nick: But would they have try to slander her?
Andrew: Maybe. But it's more likely for them to have focused more on the science than the author herself. There probably would have stayed more away from her personal life, at least.
Nick:Who do you think Carson's main audience was intended to be?
Andrew: The general public of the US, to inform them of what chemicals are doing of humans that at the time, they didn't even know about, and what dangers they could potentially cause.
Nick: Generally speaking, pesticides can help up grow crop in the short term. Should we also use new chemicals in the long run, even if they have not necessarily ben tested yet?
Andrew: There aren't that many insects that are actually deadly; therefore, I do not see it as an absolute necessity to bombard our foods with these chemicals. We depend on nature as much as it depends on us, and we need to take care of it in order to take care of ourselves.
Nick: How would Carson's book be received if it was released today?
Andrew: Overall, I feel that people would not be as critical, due to scientific advances that were not yet made in the 1930s. They would definitely not be biased against her simply for her gender.
Nick:How would Carson's book be different if released today?
Andrew: If Silent Spring was released today, she would probably give America a mixed grade. We are a leading consumer of natural resources, and next to China, we pollute a lot of the air. In regards to the use of chemicals, Carson definitely would have mentioned the dropping of tone oA Bomb as a warning example of the detriment that chemicals can cause. I also believe that she would try to have us switch to an alternative fuel source, as opposed to fossil fuels.
Nick: Is it our job to protect our the environment for future generations?
Andrew: We need to take care of the earth, for our own and future generations. We need to prolong our species and the Earth, and the best way to do this is by properly protecting our habitat.
Nick: Do you think that Carson had any religious or spiritual background?
Andrew: Definitely spiritual. She was connected to nature, specially birds, at such a young age, and that shaped her spiritual aspects, for sure. I don't think she was necessarily religious, though.
Nick: One more question. In the novel, Carson mentions that one of the reasons that pests have become prevalent here is because of single-crop farming. Should we go back to our American roots?
Andrew: Realistically, I doubt that this is possible. Ideally, however, I think each farmer should grow four crops, and rotate each year. We wouldn't have to spend money on pesticides, but it might be more expensive for both the farmer and the consumers. It may not save money at the moment, but in time there may be a net savings.